If you saw this post, then this is its counterpart.
Below is the before and after example that you can download and work on yourself. I will go over all of the techniques that I used to get to the final image.
Here is the overall outline of this post:

Here I have used the Healing Brush to pick good areas of skin and then paint over the bad areas.

Now lets deal with these dark under-eye circles. I like to use the Patch Tool since it offers us the option of drawing a selection and then repairing that entire selection without having to click a bunch with the healing tool or clone stamp.

Here I have selected my Patch Tool and selected the area that needs blending. My selection will contain Ĺ of the dark area and Ĺ of the light area. Now, click inside the selection and drag it to a part of good skin. The first place to try is directly below the selection since it holds the same sort of skin pores. We donít want to loose those pores for if we do we start seeing the plastic skin that we see all too often.

Now that we have drug down our selection we are left with this soft gradation instead of obvious dark under eye circles. Before de-selecting and going to to the eye, lets keep our selection up and go to Edit>Fade Selection Tool

I usually hit ď50Ē and blend it half way. What this does is blend the change you have just made with the selection tool. This helps put some grain/pores/texture back into what we have just softened but also retaining the smooth blend. Here is our before and after of the under-eye:

Itís a subtle change, but many subtle changes transform an image into a much better image without doing anything drastic and/or obvious. Here is a (link)
with the same tutorial from another person in the case I wasnít very clear.

Now the skin. I think this is the biggest deal for everyone. How do I soften skin but retain its overall realistic feel and look? Well, I would say it depends on the type of skin you are working on. First off, I would definitely suggest the Digital GEM Retouching Tool. Out of the hundreds of 3rd party skin soften tools I have tried, this is the one. Well, for me anyways. I did not use this tool in this specific image, but Iím only suggesting it because it works and works very well.

In this image I used a technique that I made up by using basic Photoshop functions. Iím a huge fan of being able to do my work in any version of Photoshop without having to use anything but the original installed adobe components. Letís say its just good ethics. By the way I work primarily in Photoshop 7 on a daily basis. I do have PS8 and PS9, but I prefer 7 for it runs much faster.
Okay here we go, letís start with making some general selections (with the Lasso tool- ďLĒ on the keyboard) to the face that we want to make improvements on. Like this below.:
Now copy this selection and paste. (Edit>COPY then Edit>PASTE) This will create a new layer with our selection.

Now, letís blur this new layer with Filter > Gaussian Blur.

Then, lets add some grain/texture to fake the appearance of texture. Go to Filter > Noise >Add Noise. The amount of noise we use here depends on the size of our file. If you have downloaded the above file to work on, I would use 4% or 5%, Uniform, Monochromatic off.

Almost done. Since we have a layer that we blurred on top of our original image, some of the top layer has bled into the eyes, mouth and hair area. Letís get out our eraser and make it a very soft brush.
Then erase the eye areas, mouth and around the entire face. Oops, my 'after' image is on the left below. Notice the eyes are not hazy anymore after we erase out parts of the blurred areas.

Now for the last step, lower the opacity of the top layer to where you feel it looks best. Aaaaaand, thatís it. Now for an even big secret. The entire process from right after Step 4 (selecting to parts of the face) I made as an action. So, this image I would have bumped the curves if needed, removed major blemishes, make my main facial selections, hit the actionÖdone.

Great tutorial! I'm sure folks are going to love it!! I would also suggest that photographers check out http://www.retouchpro.com - tons of great information there as well.

One suggestion I'd like to make - and that is regarding adding texture back in. Probably the best way is with a texture map from good skin (or patching and cloning from good skin sources), but if you're going to fake it by blurring and then adding noise, try this. Add the noise on a separate layer (overlay, using a neutral gray fill). then after you apply the add noise filter, add the emboss filter. You don't need much, just a bit, but it will add depth to the noise which mimics skin a bit better. Of course, doing this require you to then add a layer mask and paint the texture back in, but you should be doing that anyway.

Thanks for writing this up. You can save yourself some time just by copying the entire photograph on a new layer. Gaussian blurring the whole thing, layer masking the layer and painting in the softer skin. You'll notice in your example you've missed several blackheads around the eyebrow and nose. Those, especially the larger ones, need to be zapped (the spot healing brush works OK)

I usually zap all major zits first with spot healing brush since you don't care about saving any part of them.
Then remove crow's feet and wrinkles you are going to permanently delete.
Then do the under eye's on a separate layer with patch tool because you are going to want to blend some of them back in using layer opacity.
Then smooth skin on a separate layer (use copy merge to create the new layer).

I've found skipping the noise step is OK if you adjust the opacity. Also, a lot of folks have invested in GEM digital airbrush and use it instead.

Finally, using a large diffused light source when shooting models like this in the first place will also greatly reduce the amount of touching up you have to do.

Yes, layer masks are the way to go, all editing should be non destructive if possible. Of course that being said, judicious use of the patch tool on the pore level I find works much better the the healing brush. Again, you should really be building up a library of good skin, to reference from.

I suggest, if you haven't already and assuming you have some personal web space, you keep it available forever by copying it to your site. This represents too much work and is too useful to leave for only the archives here.

Thanks.

I always wondered why using pencils and razors on the silicon side of the sensor didnt' have the desired effect.

__________________
"Keeping shooting will do more for the excellence of your photography than most any camera will!" JimmyD, PGS Extraordinaire.

[mcherry]
:// Thank you. Good idea with the embossing. I never tried that. Hopefully someday we will be in a better place with great models and awesome skin with 50MP cameras and a steady hand...then we won't have any more of this "digtal fake" stuff.

[mcherry] #2
:// Masks are one of the most powerful ideas/tools to know how to use. I will post a tutorial about it sometime in the various ways they can be used ...unless you get to it first. Here in the portrait studio there is no time to build libraries of skin pores and use them. Things are very fast paced and have to be done very well and in minimal time. There is money to be made! Of course, the skin library may be a good idea if one is doing isolated shoots on occasions. Maybe for a magazine cover and such, then I could see that being useful.

[DannyZ]
:// Thank you for taking time to view it. I hope something will help improve or at least add to your knowledge.

[johne]
:// A few things I didn't go over that I did do in the image was enhance the eyes and whiten her teeth. I did a tutorial awhile back about eyes but I didn't provide enough steps and people didn't like it. Maybe I should redo that one...

[PhotographerC]
://That is a good idea except by copying a layer and blurring the entire thing takes more time than to work through my entire tutorial...just about. I see your point though. If the image was smaller that would be the smart thing to do. But I work with monsters and some filters take way too long. This is why I make a general selection first. Then the filter only has to do its work on the selected part.

[cclesue " Please tell me your NOT using an erasure in place of a layer mask.""]
://I have said the same thing to many many people. I'm not into the eraser tool at all except on that one step. I use layer masks for hundreds of other techniques. I think it is good ethics to sometimes not to use a layer mask for I may improve my drawing/painting/airbrush technique. I started in PS4 where there were no layer masks. I know of others whom started in ever earlier versions that did not even have layers. I have a hint of pride (being proud) when I feel like I'm using the techniques of the old. Lets face it, if someone with a real airbrush can edit a picture just as good as I can in PS-CS2....he will always be more impressive and revered than myself.

[GCook]
://I'm glad you found something useful in here. You said "It seems more logical to me than erasing it after." and that is key. In most cases you can get to the same point of a retouched image in several different ways. Each person has their own way which works for them, which of course is totally fine. Sometimes it's hard to write tutorials because there are always the 'ones' who have to say that the way you do something is wrong or bad. (as if they have a 'right' way of doing things...maybe a better way, but they then should share if they feel the need to reply) thanks for replying!

[jford]
://You know, I never got around to building my own website. I started it though. I spent much time building one for the studio I work for though. I figure I got paid to make that one. I know if I had my own business it would pay off to put time into a website, but it isn't the right (or practical) time to do one yet.